Using My Blog as Originally Intended

Every day I read a myriad of web sites that meet my interest. More often I post them on Facebook or Twitter. This morning an idea hit me right between the eyes: Post these links onto my Blog. Stupidly this is exactly why I started for blogging back in the late 90′s.

Yet when I was invited to use Facebook, I lost interest in a lot of things, particularly blogging. That fact annoys me. I seriously gotta get off that ‘book and get back into paperbacks!

So, today, after much trawling of websites throughout today, I found a LOT of sites of interest, yet these six are the ones that interest me most. I like to write my own special by-line to sell the sites. It helps to improve my copy-writing skills, all self taught!

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1. If any of your pages have been swallowed into the abyss, most likely it was devoured by a terror of the deep. That is all. Not sure why I listed this link, it just tickled my sense of humour.

2. Got memory-loss issues? Can’t recall the something you saw just 4 seconds ago? Forget where you were last night? Or simply want to record every important moment in your life?
/ Found at blog.makezine.com.

3. Want to learn all that you want without ever stepping into a classroom? You can. For at least seven years the internet has provided many locations through which you can learn the physics of underwater macrame or toilet-paper-mache.

5. The Microsoft Surface bombed in the sales department. No surprise to me. When they first started marketing them here in Australia, most of us watched transfixed as a bunch of teenagers pranced around a fountain ‘clicking’ the monitor to the keyboard.

It looked good, the marketing was schweet … yet few of us imagined actually owning one, let alone getting the opportunity to touch one. I did, just the one time. Mr Richard Pascoe brought it to lunch one time, whereupon I proceeded to push all the buttons. (Still wishing I had pushed a few more, but hey!) I liked the look of it, yet was concerned with a few issues:

• Keyboard. Or lack thereof. It barely feels like a keyboard. Touch-typists are going to get pissed off real quick. I did. This device is not built for coders or photo editors, it is for everday users, like, say – social networkers who spend 98% of their time jibberjabbering about their movement around their city. Not for coding or moving files between servers. It is a toy, and expensive one that that.
• Windows 8. Sigh. The few times I have had the misfortune to use Windows 8, I have been less than impressed. Put your cursor into the corners of the screen if you want to get anywhere. Don’t believe all the hype, it’s a severely dumbed-down interface. The Apple people must be flattered.

5. You don’t have to be a genius to do anything. You just need to be persistent and willing to learn how to a computer – either at school or online , or from a book. Maybe read a book online. Imagine it, learning without teachers. Sure, network with cohorts in the same industry, just don’t spend a fortune to learn what you want or need to know. Has worked for me. / Disclaimer: It also helps to employ people smarter than yourself. That’s how the guys in this video below have run their respective business’s.

6. Thanks to Peaches for helping me find this command for Notepad++ to convert between HTML, Markdown and Textile. As the author/write of this command says, it is going to be useful for writing material from scratch, to polish existing content in HTML, and to lift material from other documents or websites.

Turns out it is an excellent addon to NotePadd++.  / Thankfully there’s also an easy option to do what I need: Convert textile-filled notes into link-filled wordpress articles.

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OK, that’s enough for you to mull over. I don’t want to use up all my energy in one sitting, gotta save some doozies for next time I post here.

PS. 7. Read how Facebook died/dies. Sorta, kinda, maybe.

Advice to Commonwealth Olympians

I said this on Facebook earlier today. Now I realise that a wider audience needs to read it:

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Advice to Athletes:

Forget about social media, you have a bigger job to do this week.

Advice to social media addicts who feel the need to judge olympians:

Get off the computer. Go outside. Get some exercise. Grow up. Get a life.

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Lack of Civil Communication

This was written on my Apple Touch about 3 years ago, and it has been sitting on it ever since. Tonight whilst clearing out data I happened upon it again. I’ve decided to publish as is. Your responses are welcomed on any part of what I have said.

It’s our action and in-actions that effect the outcome. This is never more obvious on the train to & from work.

Each person we choose not to speak with, the person we avoid, the loudness of the ear/head-phones to our music – each of these choices will effect opportunities to meet somebody interesting.

Yet we live in a society whose presence is predominately active on the WWW and not set in the real world. This shallow existence is a result of technology built for extreme situations being sold to the masses with a vague byline that suggests it will improve their lives.

Which, to some degree, has happened – there’s little doubt of that. Businesses both big and small use this avenue to promote their wares more extensively. Up-n-coming startups are able to show off, thereby encouraging Angels and investors. Businesses can diversify their product range for a solely online audience.

And sole propietors can subtley promote their ideas and progects with little expense -other than the monthly cost of an Internet connection.

Yet it is this activity that is slowly destroying the way of life we knew before we had the Internet. The carefree travelling across the country is dissappearing as a new generation insist that each destination has FREE Wifi.

In our attempts to move freely across this un-worldly terrain, we choose unusual actions, we choose to be ‘friends’ with people we’ve never met, and sometimes we choose circumstances that suit the supposed requirements of the lives we think we’d like to have.

Yet we still continue to restrict ourselves. The actions we don’t take, the direction alongside life’s path we ignore, the pain avoided, the lesson left unheeded, the friendships abandoned, each of the non-actions stop each of us from progressing.

Despite all these choices, we still accumulate material items.

Example:
My shoulder bag is now ‘Crumpler‘, my diary is ‘Apple‘, my pen and paper are careful purchases to ensure high quality, my music is a massive collection of MP3′s and MPEG’s!

My camera, computer & related accessories are now the best, yet I still refuse to pay full price – because I always haggle for goods. But these materialistic items pale into insignif’ when you look at what has been given up or lost.

Normal conversation with mouth-breathers has been replaced with 140 characters, each of which has been carefully chosen to ensure the maximum impact. Whereas previously we could have mashed the English language with grammatically incorrect colloquialisms, people either destroy words with SMS-speak or torture us with corporate jargon that only their peers comprehend.

Yes, it seems to have ended halfway through the story, yet since the moment in which I wrote this (presumbably during the 40minute train-ride into town) is long gone, I have chosen to leave it it at this interlude.
Maybe it went too far even. You choose. 
Feel free to comment on my thoughts.

Supporting Services for my Son’s Surgery

By way of thanking all the services involved in the recovery of my son over the last five days, you’ll read what has transpired:

Massive appreciation for the following services over the last 5 days:

• The Kingscote Hospital and nurses who were open, available and willing to help at 5AM last Thursday after Jai vomited all over himself several times the day before and throughout that night.
• The Kangaroo Island Medical Clinic at Kingscote.
• The CAFHS office at Kingscote for listening to Sarah’s gut-instinct that questioned the judgment of others.
• The two lovely volunteer Ambulance drivers who drove Sarah and Jai from the Kingscote Hospital to the Airport, out onto the tarmac, loaded them safely onto the plane – then gave me a Trauma-Bear (to give to Jai), and drove me back to the hospital!
• The Royal Flying Doctors who flew Sarah and Jai from Kangaroo Island back to Adelaide last Thursday night at 8PM.
  I had the opportunity to speak to the pilot, so I said: “OK, Adelaide is that way, don’t stop for hitchhikers and stay away from the water!”
• The Women’s and Children’s Hospital with their amazing nurses, doctors, ultrasound-specialists, anesthetists and surgeons. Their combined efforts determined that Jai had Pyloric stenosis, therefore required Pyloromyotomy Surgery  

PLUS MORE APPRECIATION to the visiting services to the WCH:

• The MFS who visited to give stuffed-toys, MFS plastic firemen hats, & chocolate to all the kids in the ward! They were also supporting the ‘Shake the Boot’ campaign,
• and those happy, crazy, multi-coloured and funny doctors who gave smiling-cardboard-faces to all the kids.

I must also say: “HOPE YOU ALL GET BETTER SOON!” to 2yo Heidi & 14yo Saskia & 9yo Summer in our Bay in Newland House. Each of those little kids was so strong, brave, happy and inspirational to each other.

Related articles

• Bay of Shoals (kangarooislandexperiences.com)
• Kangaroo Island – an artist’s paradise (seascapesaus.wordpress.com)
• Kangaroo Island (vibekejohannessen.com)

The Adelaide Children’s Hospital (built 1878), original wing of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital (Photo credit: Wikipedia)